World News & Politics

Lobbying in the nation’s capitol is a billion dollar industry, but sometimes, companies dip their toes into state and local politics, as well. When giant corporations want to influence bills and national elections, they generally spread their money around, cozying up to a number of politicians and shaking hands with numerous government officials. However, at the local level, high-dollar financing is a bit more transparent.

Insys Therapeutics is a small player on the national scale. The Center for Responsive Politics reported that they spent only $120,000 lobbying in D.C. in 2016. But in Arizona, where the company is based, they forked over $500,000 — and they did it to keep marijuana illegal in the traditionally Republican state.

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A judge out of New Jersey ruled that a man’s insurance company must pay for the cost of his medical cannabis treatment. This may establish an important precedent in the medical industry.

Andrew Watson, who lives in Egg Harbor, New Jersey, enrolled in the state’s medical cannabis program in 2014. He sought financial reimbursement for the purchase of medicinal cannabis over a term of three months.

Watson was injured on the job. Subsequently, he suffered from chronic neuropathic pain in his left hand. His condition was consistent with New Jersey’s list of qualifying conditions for medical marijuana. Yet, his initial worker’s compensation claim was denied.

During the hearing, a psychiatrist/neurologist testified on Watson’s behalf. The expert stated that medical marijuana would allow Watson to reduce his prescription opiate use. In addition, this would lower risk of addiction and dangerous side effects. The court established that Watson’s cannabis usage is indeed medicinal and that his insurance company should cover his claim.

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Today, Tuesday 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks begins its new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Code-named "Vault 7" by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.

Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.

Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, the lawmaker who accused the U.S. government of funding and arming ISIS and introduced a bill to prevent it from happening in future, recently disclosed that she met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during her recent trip to Syria. The move has reportedly angered many of her fellow congressmen and women.

Upon returning from the war-stricken nation, Gabbard released the following statement in the form of a press release:

“My visit to Syria has made it abundantly clear: Our counterproductive regime change war does not serve America’s interest, and it certainly isn’t in the interest of the Syrian people.

“As I visited with people from across the country, and heard heartbreaking stories of how this war has devastated their lives, I was asked, ‘Why is the United States and its allies helping al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups try to take over Syria? Syria did not attack the United States. Al-Qaeda did.’ I had no answer.”

According to Reuters, U.S. President Donald Trump signed two executive actions on Tuesday to advance construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, an administration official said, rolling back key Obama administration environmental policies in favor of expanding energy infrastructure.

The entire substance of the executive order was not made immediately clear. However, they will fulfill campaign promises Trump made to approve both pipelines — which have been vehemently opposed by a massive bipartisan sect.

This news comes on the heels of a pipeline spill yesterday, which dumped hundreds of thousands of liters of oil on an aboriginal community in Canada.

As the Free Thought Project has reported, this move by Trump has been premeditated since the election. It is most likely why the company behind DAPL, Energy Transfer Partners, said in December, the denial of an easement necessary to drill under the Missouri River is of no consequence for its plans to complete the project.

RT news has been blocked by Facebook from posting anything on their page until after Trump’s inauguration.

According to their Facebook page, where they can now only post plain text but no links, photos, videos or GIFs, the Facebook ban came whilst the team were live-streaming President Obama’s final press conference. They say on their Facebook page, in response to numerous comments asking for the reasons behind the ban, “We were blocked while livestreaming Obama’s final press-conference. Such things happen because (for ex.) some other news media livestreams carry the same shots and feed, and Facebook considers this a copyright violation”. Their Facebook page currently has over 4 million followers.

They were told by a Facebook bot that the current ban will last until Saturday 10:55pm Moscow time (2:55pm EST), and will extend across Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Shortly after the Obama administration began deploying American troops across Russia’s border in a number of countries, including Lithuania, some 300 U.S. Marines landed in Norway for a six-month deployment. Their Monday deployment marks the first time since World War II that foreign troops have been allowed to station in Norway.

The Marines will spend a year in total in Norwegian territory, and the current deployment will be replaced after their six-month service is completed.

Unsurprisingly, it’s doubtful Russia will view this move favorably. When questioned about the proposal to station U.S. troops in Norway in October last year, Russia questioned the motives behind such a move. As the Russian embassy in Oslo toldReuters:

“Taking into account multiple statements of Norwegian officials about the absence of threat from Russia to Norway we would like to understand for what purposes is Norway so … willing to increase its military potential, in particular through stationing of American forces in Vaernes?”

Running over protesters may soon be legal in North Dakota, if conservative lawmakers are successful in advancing legislation introduced last week.

House Bill Number 1203 (pdf) states that, "Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a driver of a motor vehicle who unintentionally causes injury or death to an individual obstructing vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway, is not guilty of an offense."

The bill is slated to be heard by the North Dakota's House Transportation Committee on Friday.

Rep. Keith Kempenich (R-Bowman), one of the bill's co-sponsors, told theBismarck Tribune on Wednesday, "[The roads are] not there for the protesters. They're intentionally putting themselves in danger."

"It's shifting the burden of proof from the motor vehicle driver to the pedestrian," Kempenich said.

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As the media continues to parrot American intelligence agencies’ as-of-yet unsubstantiated claims that Russia hacked the U.S. election, there is far more evidence to implicate an equally dangerous infiltrator: Goldman Sachs.

The infamous banking company, which was widely implicated in the 2008 economic crash, appears to have come out on top in the most recent U.S. presidential election.

On one hand, Goldman Sachs was hedging its bets on a Hillary Clinton victory. Considering the banking monolith was one of her top donors — and that she received harsh criticism for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from the firm — it’s clear the powerful financiers had every intent of influencing the election and politics in general.

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With mere days left before President-elect Donald Trump takes the White House, President Barack Obama’s administration just finalized rules to make it easier for the nation’s intelligence agencies to share unfiltered information about innocent people.

New rules issued by the Obama administration under Executive Order 12333 will let the NSA—which collects information under that authority with little oversight, transparency, or concern for privacy—share the raw streams of communications it intercepts directly with agencies including the FBI, the DEA, and the Department of Homeland Security, according to a report today by the New York Times.

That’s a huge and troubling shift in the way those intelligence agencies receive information collected by the NSA. Domestic agencies like the FBI are subject to more privacy protections, including warrant requirements. Previously, the NSA shared data with these agencies only after it had screened the data, filtering out unnecessary personal information, including about innocent people whose communications were swept up the NSA’s massive surveillance operations.